Fan Tokens Could Be Coming To Your Sports Franchise

Maciej Zieliński

09 Feb 2022
Fan Tokens Could Be Coming To Your Sports Franchise

Jennifer Birch

Every day, the use of blockchain technology is becoming more widespread. More companies are allowing cryptocurrency as a form of payment, and startups are using initial coin offerings as a way to gather funds in exchange for services or voting power. Beyond these major forms of crypto market growth, there are also other fascinating ways in which blockchain tech and crypto assets are being put to use. One of the most interesting is proving to be the sports industry's adoption of fan tokens.

Fan tokens can give their holders access to unique benefits

The emergence of fan token offering

As some of the more recent innovations in blockchain-based enterprises, fan coins are still establishing a market. These coins represent specific sports teams and offer different benefits to those teams' fans. As a result, sports clubs have found an additional source of revenue that allows them to connect with their fans.

Some of the biggest sports organizations in the world, like the French football club Paris Saint Germain, and the Chicago Bulls from the NBA, have started offering fan tokens through specialized fan token platforms. Even mixed martial art companies like the UFC and the Tennis Davis Cup have created their own tokens.

Fan related membership perks

What do fans get out of fan tokens?

The emergence of fan tokens and their value relies on the benefits it gives their owners. Some digital tokens offer relatively simple rewards, like VIP access to merchandise designs or ticket raffles. Others make offerings tailored to their specific fan base. Esports company Team Heretics, for example, allows token owners to visit their training facilities, and even appear on their online video series.

Most sports clubs also allow their fans to participate in votes that may influence specific club decisions. FC Barcelona, for example, allows their fan token holders to use their tokens to vote on a design for their dressing rooms, or the playlist heard during a match. PSG fans, on the other hand, can choose the official best goal of the season, or the cover of the next version of the video game FIFA.

The combination of benefits and voting rights make fan tokens a valuable item for loyal fans, which in turn raises their value on the market. European clubs like PSG or England’s Manchester City have some of the most sought after tokens created. This has led some sports enthusiasts to purchase fan tokens for more than one club, expecting to trade them when their value rises.

People who own fan tokens also get to interact with other fans, see their placing in a leaderboard, and even participate in games. They also have the chance to acquire free tokens by participating in augmented reality treasure hunts.

One of the most exciting facts about fan tokens though is how it helps empower fans around the world. Clubs like Manchester City and the LA Lakers may have fans all around the world, but they can hardly ever travel to these cities and support their teams live. With token fans, however, they can find a way to prove their loyalty, be a part of an exclusive community, and even influence some of their favorite team’s decisions.

Fan offerings can give their holders access to unique benefits

What's next for fan tokens?

The success of fan tokens has led organizations like cricket's Indian Premier League to consider their use, as well as esports teams like Natus Vincere and OG to start offering fan tokens and compete with the biggest companies in the market. Who knows, maybe we are a couple of months before individual athletes like LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo realize the true potential of these offerings, and stop releasing non-fungible tokens in favor of their own fan tokens.

Fan tokens are among the most interesting cryptocurrency-based projects. It allows fans to support their favorite teams regardless of their location, participate in club decisions, as well as try their hands on the cryptocurrency market. As a result, fan tokens have become some of the most popular digital assets in a relatively short amount of time and are slowly taking over the world of sports.

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Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Kajetan Olas

22 Nov 2024
Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Authors of the contents are not affiliated to the reviewed project in any way and none of the information presented should be taken as financial advice.

In this article we analyze tokenomics of Aethir - a project providing on-demand cloud compute resources for the AI, Gaming, and virtualized compute sectors.
Aethir aims to aggregate enterprise-grade GPUs from multiple providers into a DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network). Its competitive edge comes from utlizing the GPUs for very specific use-cases, such as low-latency rendering for online games.
Due to decentralized nature of its infrastructure Aethir can meet the demands of online-gaming in any region. This is especially important for some gamer-abundant regions in Asia with underdeveloped cloud infrastructure that causes high latency ("lags").
We will analyze Aethir's tokenomics, give our opinion on what was done well, and provide specific recommendations on how to improve it.

Evaluation Summary

Aethir Tokenomics Structure

The total supply of ATH tokens is capped at 42 billion ATH. This fixed cap provides a predictable supply environment, and the complete emissions schedule is listed here. As of November 2024 there are approximately 5.2 Billion ATH in circulation. In a year from now (November 2025), the circulating supply will almost triple, and will amount to approximately 15 Billion ATH. By November 2028, today's circulating supply will be diluted by around 86%.

From an investor standpoint the rational decision would be to stake their tokens and hope for rewards that will balance the inflation. Currently the estimated APR for 3-year staking is 195% and for 4-year staking APR is 261%. The rewards are paid out weekly. Furthermore, stakers can expect to get additional rewards from partnered AI projects.

Staking Incentives

Rewards are calculated based on the staking duration and staked amount. These factors are equally important and they linearly influence weekly rewards. This means that someone who stakes 100 ATH for 2 weeks will have the same weekly rewards as someone who stakes 200 ATH for 1 week. This mechanism greatly emphasizes long-term holding. That's because holding a token makes sense only if you go for long-term staking. E.g. a whale staking $200k with 1 week lockup. will have the same weekly rewards as person staking $1k with 4 year lockup. Furthermore the ATH staking rewards are fixed and divided among stakers. Therefore Increase of user base is likely to come with decrease in rewards.
We believe the main weak-point of Aethirs staking is the lack of equivalency between rewards paid out to the users and value generated for the protocol as a result of staking.

Token Distribution

The token distribution of $ATH is well designed and comes with long vesting time-frames. 18-month cliff and 36-moths subsequent linear vesting is applied to team's allocation. This is higher than industry standard and is a sign of long-term commitment.

  • Checkers and Compute Providers: 50%
  • Ecosystem: 15%
  • Team: 12.5%
  • Investors: 11.5%
  • Airdrop: 6%
  • Advisors: 5%

Aethir's airdrop is divided into 3 phases to ensure that only loyal users get rewarded. This mechanism is very-well thought and we rate it highly. It fosters high community engagement within the first months of the project and sets the ground for potentially giving more-control to the DAO.

Governance and Community-Led Development

Aethir’s governance model promotes community-led decision-making in a very practical way. Instead of rushing with creation of a DAO for PR and marketing purposes Aethir is trying to make it the right way. They support projects building on their infrastructure and regularly share updates with their community in the most professional manner.

We believe Aethir would benefit from implementing reputation boosted voting. An example of such system is described here. The core assumption is to abandon the simplistic: 1 token = 1 vote and go towards: Votes = tokens * reputation_based_multiplication_factor.

In the attached example, reputation_based_multiplication_factor rises exponentially with the number of standard deviations above norm, with regard to user's rating. For compute compute providers at Aethir, user's rating could be replaced by provider's uptime.

Perspectives for the future

While it's important to analyze aspects such as supply-side tokenomics, or governance, we must keep in mind that 95% of project's success depends on demand-side. In this regard the outlook for Aethir may be very bright. The project declares $36M annual reccuring revenue. Revenue like this is very rare in the web3 space. Many projects are not able to generate any revenue after succesfull ICO event, due to lack fo product-market-fit.

If you're looking to create a robust tokenomics model and go through institutional-grade testing please reach out to contact@nextrope.com. Our team is ready to help you with the token engineering process and ensure your project’s resilience in the long term.

Nextrope Partners with Hacken to Enhance Blockchain Security

Miłosz

21 Nov 2024
Nextrope Partners with Hacken to Enhance Blockchain Security

Nextrope announces a strategic partnership with Hacken, a renowned blockchain security auditor. It marks a significant step in delivering reliable decentralized solutions. After several successful collaborations resulting in flawless smart contract audits, the alliance solidifies the synergy between Nextrope's innovative blockchain development and Hacken's top-tier security auditing services. Together, we aim to set new benchmarks, ensuring that security is an integral part of blockchain technology.

Strengthening Blockchain Security

The partnership aims to fortify the security protocols within blockchain ecosystems. By integrating Hacken's comprehensive security audits with Nextrope's cutting-edge blockchain solutions, we are poised to offer unparalleled security features in our projects.

"Blockchain security should never be an afterthought"

"Our partnership with Hacken underscores our dedication to embedding security at the core of our blockchain solutions. Together, we're building a safer future for the industry."

said Mateusz Mach, CEO of Nextrope

About Nextrope

Nextrope is a forward-thinking blockchain development house specializing in creating innovative solutions for businesses worldwide. With a team of experienced developers and blockchain experts, Nextrope delivers high-quality, scalable, and secure blockchain applications tailored to meet the unique needs of each client.

About Hacken

Hacken is a leading blockchain security auditor known for its rigorous smart contract audits and security assessments. With a mission to make the industry safer, Hacken provides complex security services that help companies identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in their applications.

Looking Ahead

As a joint mission, both Nextrope and Hacken are committed to continuous innovation. We look forward to the exciting opportunities this partnership will bring and are eager to implement a more secure blockchain environment for all.

For more information, please contact:

Nextrope

Hacken

Join us on our journey to deliver top-notch blockchain tech and a safer future for the industry!